By default, Elasticsearch runs in the foreground, prints its logs to the
standard output (stdout), and can be stopped by pressing Ctrl-C.

All scripts packaged with Elasticsearch require a version of Bash
that supports arrays and assume that Bash is available at /bin/bash.
As such, Bash should be available at this path either directly or via a
symbolic link.

Elasticsearch loads its configuration from the $ES_HOME/config/elasticsearch.yml
file by default. The format of this config file is explained in
Configuring Elasticsearch.

Any settings that can be specified in the config file can also be specified on
the command line, using the -E syntax as follows:

./bin/elasticsearch -d -Ecluster.name=my_cluster -Enode.name=node_1

Typically, any cluster-wide settings (like cluster.name) should be
added to the elasticsearch.yml config file, while any node-specific settings
such as node.name could be specified on the command line.

The .zip and .tar.gz packages are entirely self-contained. All files and
directories are, by default, contained within $ES_HOME — the directory
created when unpacking the archive.

This is very convenient because you don’t have to create any directories to
start using Elasticsearch, and uninstalling Elasticsearch is as easy as
removing the $ES_HOME directory. However, it is advisable to change the
default locations of the config directory, the data directory, and the logs
directory so that you do not delete important data later on.

Type

Description

Default Location

Setting

home

Elasticsearch home directory or $ES_HOME

Directory created by unpacking the archive

bin

Binary scripts including elasticsearch to start a node
and elasticsearch-plugin to install plugins

$ES_HOME/bin

conf

Configuration files including elasticsearch.yml

$ES_HOME/config

path.conf

data

The location of the data files of each index / shard allocated
on the node. Can hold multiple locations.

$ES_HOME/data

path.data

logs

Log files location.

$ES_HOME/logs

path.logs

plugins

Plugin files location. Each plugin will be contained in a subdirectory.

$ES_HOME/plugins

repo

Shared file system repository locations. Can hold multiple locations. A file system repository can be placed in to any subdirectory of any directory specified here.